Tokyo Day 3

I know, when you think of Japan, you don't think: Starbucks. But I think as Starbuck's popularity raise globally, it is getting as prevalent as McDonald's. I am by no means trying to compare Starbucks w/ McDonald's, but it's widespread-ness is to match for an American company aboard.

One thing Starbucks pride of themselves is the consistency across all stores, even if you are in Japan. (I know, I used to be a barista there when I was in college.) That said, there are differences. Obviously, they greet you as you walk in, that's just a Japanese thing. But in addition to the overhead menu board, they also have a very nice traditional printed menu. It allows them to print on nice glossy cardboard to impress all the customers.

I find it very interesting that they gave me this Soymilk card to note that my drink is soymilk... I do turn it in when I grab my drink, but I'm not sure it's helping me any, since I ordered it that way. Wouldn't it make more sense to give it to the bar??? Hmm...

Anyway, we were at Odiba to see the Statue of Liberty (tm) mini version, and really to go see
the Venus Fort. That is really an Outlet mall that has a new Hello Kitty's Kawaii's Paradise. (Sorry for the sideway pic) But as you can see, Hello Kitty's Pancake house offers not just sweet pancakes as you and I know it in the States. They also offer lettuce, tomato and other ingrediants between the shortstacks. Hmm... interesting.

I suppose pancakes is just cakes, doesn't have sweet or savory taste to it, which is why we add butter and syrup, but with things in between? That's a tad unusual for me.

While I didn't get to eat at the Hello Kitty's Pancake house, we did get lost to a sushi restaurant. The entire Venus Fort has several components to it, as you walk and walk and walk, you tend to get lost. We got to Snoopy World, which is a small booth w/ merchandise and snacks; it leads you to a hallway of more food.

Honestly, trying to find sushi restaurants were harder than I thought. Most Japanese go to these quick stores for fast food that puts these sushi places on the outs. I heard someone said that sushi restaurants are for old people. Hmm???

For me, I just love those sushi restaurant w/ a conveyer belt around. I know that's not exactly authentic, and as my friend Pat from Cali was saying that they do have something like that in LA, but these sushi is made by real sushi chef that are Japanese... to me, that's authentic... -ish.

You sit down, grab you a cup and get some matcha powder and there's a hot water sprout right there in front of you. Grab your chopsticks and you're ready to eat.

For those of you not familiar w/ the concept, you sit down at this bar, and there's a conveyer belt around the sushi chefs and they make the food inside and as they put out different plates, they put the food on this conveyer belt, and you grab what you want to eat. How they tally up at the end of the meal is by the number of colored plates. Each colored plate represent a price. It is very easy to get carried away. Not just because the food is good, but little by little you don't realize how much you've eaten until they started to tally up for the bill. I would say this is one of our more expensive meals in Japan.

This is just a random shot at a bakery in the train station... I was just so impressed that a tiny little neighborhood bakery, no claim to fame, produced the cutest bread around... I'm not sure I can bite into a cute bear or turtle.

The next stop we headed to Tokyo Tower. From one non-authentic Japanese landmark to another. The Tokyo Tower is a gift from France to Japan. It is exactly the same, I would venture to say that it is a bit smaller by size, but it's still pretty big.

The tower is literally 5 mins walk from the closest station. You do have to walk up to a half hill in order to get to the main lobby. On our way up, we saw this vendor selling....

Dim Sum. I don't think the guy wrapped all of these himself, either he represent some food truck or he has someone doing it. Or worst, buy them frozen and steam them there. But they are the biggest shu mai dumplings I've ever seen. No wonder he's charging 200Yen for them (that's about $2 US)

Funny antedote: when we arrived to the lobby, there was a JPop star in Japanese school uniform w/ her backup dancers giving a free concert. The site was a very uniformed crowd standing there, dancing along w/ the singer. Upon a closer look, all of the audience were doing the dance moves and singing along, to a T like the singer was... I thought that was neat.... Young people has tons of time to mimic their idol. I remembered that phrase. Then, look closer... these are all middle-aged Japanese men that are singing and dancing along w/ the singer. Urh.... hmm... interesting.

Anyway, I smell crepe as I walked up to the lobby, and this is the array of variations they offer. There must be at least 50 different types. They operate like a tiny food booth, which impress me even more to have that much to offer in that tiny of space.

At night on the way home, we decided that another 'MUSTs' in terms of Japanese food is the beef bowl. They are very popular and easy to make for the Japanese, not to mention yummy.

On a Sunday nite, we went to our nearby Beef Bowl place that's opened 24hr. Since we stay near a business districts we didn't expect alot of people. But at 8pm, there are people walking in one after another, so we either picked a very good place to eat, or no one is cooking at home. haha....


The beef bowl comes in 6 sizes... yes I said 6. They have kids size, lite women size, normal size, senior size (for older people), men size (means big), and supersize. Yeah, not sure if having 6 sizes is necessary, I think the lite women size and the senior size should be the same, but hey, I didn't make that up. In a place where everything is pretty much porportionate, I was suprised to see Supersize... why? Then, again, you don't see alot of fat Japanese, unless they're Sumo Wrestlers. They walk everywhere and can probably walk off that Supersize.

Anyway, for about $6US, you get the normal size beef bowl, I got mine w/ curry sauce because I'm addicted, and a bowl of miso soup. One thing I noticed is that instead of diced tofu, they now give you the fried tofu skin. While the taste remain the same, it's just different. I like my little diced tofu.